Ammar Sami, 22, pleaded no contest Monday to lying to investigators in the days following the disappearance of Roaa Al-Dhannoon, a Lakewood mother who remained missing Monday afternoon.
(Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Lakewood mother who vanished last October is presumed dead, and prosecutors said in court Monday that the case is believed to be a homicide.

Roaa Al-Dhannoon is still officially considered missing, but investigators with Lakewood police, the FBI and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley's office believe that she was kidnapped and possibly killed, assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor Blaise Thomas said Monday.

"The investigators and our office are of the belief that Ms. Al-Dhannoon is in fact deceased," Thomas said Monday. "Investigators are currently of the belief that, at minimum, this is a kidnapping, and probably a homicide."

The revelation came as 22-year-old Ammar Sami pleaded no contest to an obstruction of justice charge for lying to investigators in the days after the woman's disappearance to cover for a person of interest in the investigation that Thomas refused to name.

"I didn't know that he committed a crime, but I know that he's a bad person," Sami said of the unnamed person of interest in a statement made at Monday's hearing through an Arabic interpreter.

Judge Nancy Margaret Russo accepted Sami's plea to the third-degree felony and found him guilty. She ordered a pre-sentencing report and set his sentencing for May 25.

Sami, a refugee from Iraq, could face deportation for his conviction. Russo ordered Sami's Iraq passport be turned over to the Department of Homeland Security at the request of prosecutors.

Al-Dhannoon was last seen on Oct. 16. She did not pick her toddler son up from daycare, and no one has heard from her since.

"Her entire life pattern ceased," Thomas said.

Sami told investigators in the days after Al-Dhannoon's disappearance that he did not know the person of interest in the investigation. Lakewood police and the FBI then pulled cellphone records and surveillance footage that showed that Sami spoke to the person several times the day she was last seen, Thomas said.

Thomas did not name that person in court or to cleveland.com after the hearing, citing the open investigation.

Sami and his lawyers, Mark Stanton and Kevin Spellacy, offered to make a statement to investigators in exchange for immunity. But prosecutors rejected the deal and sought to prosecute Sami. He was set to go to trial Monday.

Fahad SaeedCuyahoga County Sheriff's Department

Al-Dhannoon's estranged husband, Fahad Saeed, was arrested in the wake of her disappearance for violating a protection order after investigators learned that he was seen loitering outside her apartment on the day she disappeared.

Saeed pleaded guilty in Lakewood Municipal Court and is currently serving a six-month sentence in Cuyahoga County Jail.

Al-Dhannoon and Saeed -- both Iraqi nationals -- married in 2011. She filed for the protection order in November 2015, after Saeed had become increasingly violent, according to court records.

Neither Saeed or Sami are accused of harming Al-Dhannoon.

Investigators ask anyone with information about Al-Dhannoon's disappearance to call the Cleveland FBI's tip line at (216) 522-1400.